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Native Modules

Architecture

Architecture Review Needed: This documentation was written to support development against React Native's "Old" or "Legacy" Architecture. It may or may not be directly applicable to New Architecture development and needs to be reviewed and potentially updated. For information on React Native architectures in React Native Windows, see New vs. Old Architecture.

For the latest information on native development on Windows, see Native Platform: Overview.

This documentation and the underlying platform code is a work in progress. Examples (C# and C++/WinRT):

Sometimes an app needs access to a platform API that React Native doesn't have a corresponding module for yet. Maybe you want to reuse some existing .NET code without having to re-implement it in JavaScript, or write some high performance, multi-threaded code for image processing, a database, or any number of advanced extensions.

React Native was designed such that it is possible for you to write real native code and have access to the full power of the platform. This is a more advanced feature and we don't expect it to be part of the usual development process, however it is essential that it exists. If React Native doesn't support a native feature that you need, you should be able to build it yourself.

NOTE: If you are building a widget that has a UI component, check out the Native UI Component guide.

Overview

Native modules contain (or wrap) native code which can then be exposed to JS. To accomplish this in React Native for Windows, at a high level you must:

  1. Author your native module, which is the class that calls your native code.
    1. Add custom attributes to the class. These attributes allow you to define methods, properties, constants, and events that can be referenced from JavaScript.
  2. Register your native module. Note that native modules defined within your app are automatically registered.
    1. Add the package to your React Native application.
  3. Use your native module from your JavaScript code.

React Native for Windows supports authoring native modules in both C# and C++. Examples of both are provided below. Please see the Choosing C++ or C# for native code note for more information about which to choose.

NOTE: If you are unable to use the reflection-based annotation approach, you can define native modules directly using the ABI. This is outlined in the Writing Native Modules without using Attributes document.

Initial Setup

Follow the Native Modules Setup Guide to create the Visual Studio infrastructure to author your own stand-alone native module for React Native Windows.

Once you have set up your development environment and project structure, you are ready to write code.

Open the Visual Studio solution in the windows folder and add the new files directly to the app project.

Sample Native Module

1. Configure windows codegen in package.json

Add the following object to your package's package.json file:

  "codegenConfig": {
    "name": "NameOfYourApp",
    "type": "modules",
    "jsSrcsDir": "src",
    "windows": {
      "namespace": "YourAppCodegenNamespace",
      "cppStringType": "std::string", /* optional */
      "separateDataTypes": false, /* optional */
      "outputDirectory": "codegen" /* optional */
    }
  },

The values for name, type, jsSrcsDir are shared with react-native as documented here. The windows object will cause the windows-codegen task to generate windows specific codegen for any TurboModule spec files defined within your project.

  • windows.namespace: Required. This property controls which C++ namespace these generated files are using.
  • windows.cppStringType: Optional. This property controls which C++ string type is used in generated files. The default value is std::string. You could choose between std::string and std::wstring.
  • windows.separateDataTypes: Optional.
    • The default value is false, in which case NativeAbcSpec.g.h is generated from NativeAbc.ts, or with other recognized file extension.
    • When it is true:
      • NativeAbcDataTypes.h and NativeAbcSpec.g.h are generated. NativeAbcDataTypes.h contains all custom types defined in NativeAbc.ts.
      • NativeAbcSpec.g.h contains all the remaining code.
      • NativeAbcSpec.g.h does not include NativeAbcDataTypes.h.
      • If there is no custom types, NativeAbcDataTypes.h will not be generated even when windows.separateDataTypes is true.
  • windows.outputDirectory: Optional. This property controls where generated files are located. The default value is codegen, which put files in the codegen folder under the working directory. If such folder does not exist at the moment, it will be created.

2. Create JavaScript Specification

Modules should have a definition defined in a typed dialect of JavaScript (either TypeScript or Flow). Codegen will use these specifications to verify the interface provided by your native code.

There are two requirements the file containing this specification must meet:

  • The file must be named Native<MODULE_NAME>, with a .js or .jsx extension when using Flow, or a .ts, or .tsx extension when using TypeScript.
  • The file must export a TurboModuleRegistrySpec object.

Example Specification file NativeFancyMath.ts:

import type { TurboModule } from 'react-native/Libraries/TurboModule/RCTExport';
import { TurboModuleRegistry } from 'react-native';

export interface Spec extends TurboModule {
  getConstants() : {
    E: number,
    Pi: number,
  };

  add(a: number, b: number, callback: (value: number) => void) : void;
}

export default TurboModuleRegistry.get<Spec>(
  'FancyMath'
) as Spec | null;

Note even through this file uses TurboModuleRegistry, Native Modules will still work with this JavaScript. The code is forward looking and will support Native Modules or TurboModules.

Attributes

AttributeUse
ReactModuleSpecifies the class is a native module.
ReactMethodSpecifies an asynchronous method.
ReactSyncMethodSpecifies a synchronous method.
ReactConstantSpecifies a field or property that represents a constant.
ReactConstantProviderSpecifies a method that provides a set of constants.
ReactEventSpecifies a field or property that represents an event.
ReactStructSpecifies a struct that can be used in native methods.
ReactInitSpecifies a class initialization module.
ReactFunctionSpecifies a JavaScript function that you want exposed to your native code.

3. Authoring your Native Module

Here is a sample native module written in C# called FancyMath. It is a simple class that defines two numerical constants and a method 'add'.

FancyMath.cs:

using System;
using Microsoft.ReactNative.Managed;

namespace NativeModuleSample
{
  [ReactModule]
  class FancyMath
  {
    [ReactConstant]
    public double E = Math.E;

    [ReactConstant("Pi")]
    public double PI = Math.PI;

    [ReactMethod("add")]
    public double Add(double a, double b)
    {
        double result = a + b;
        AddEvent(result);
        return result;
    }

    [ReactEvent]
    public Action<double> AddEvent { get; set; }
  }
}

First off, you see that we're making use of the Microsoft.ReactNative.Managed shared library, which provides the easiest (and recommended) experience for authoring native modules. Microsoft.ReactNative.Managed provides the mechanism that discovers the native module annotations to build bindings at runtime.

The [ReactModule] attribute says that the class is a React Native native module. It has an optional parameter for the module name visible to JavaScript and optionally the name of a registered event emitter. By default, the name visible to JavaScript is the same as the class name, and the default event emitter is RCTDeviceEventEmitter.

You can overwrite the JavaScript module name like this: [ReactModule("math")].

You can specify a different event emitter like this: [ReactModule(EventEmitter = "mathEmitter")].

NOTE: Using the default event emitter, RCTDeviceEventEmitter, all native event names must be globally unique across all native modules (even the ones built-in to RN). However, specifying your own event emitter means you'll need to create and register that too. This process is outlined in the Native Modules and React Native Windows (Advanced Topics) document.

The [ReactConstant] attribute is how you can define constants. Here FancyMath has defined two constants: E and Pi. When accessing these constants you should use FancyMath.getConstants().E. If you want to use another name in JS you could override the JS name like this: [ReactConstant("e")].

The [ReactMethod] attribute is how you define methods. In FancyMath we have one method, add, which takes two doubles and returns their sum. As before, you can optionally customize the name like this: [ReactMethod("add")].

The [ReactEvent] attribute is how you define events. In FancyMath we have one event, AddEvent, which uses the ReactEvent<double> delegate, where the double represents the type of the event data. Now whenever we invoke the AddEvent delegate in our native code (as we do above), an event named "AddEvent" will be raised in JavaScript. As before, you could have optionally customized the name in JS like this: [ReactEvent("addEvent")].

4. Registering your Native Module

IMPORTANT NOTE: When you create a new project via the CLI, the generated ReactApplication class will automatically register all native modules defined within the app. You will not need to manually register native modules that are defined within your app's scope, as they will be registered automatically.

Now, we want to register our new FancyMath module with React Native so we can use it from JavaScript code. To do this, first we're going to create a ReactPackageProvider which implements Microsoft.ReactNative.IReactPackageProvider.

ReactPackageProvider.cs:

using Microsoft.ReactNative.Managed;

namespace NativeModuleSample
{
  public sealed class ReactPackageProvider : IReactPackageProvider
  {
    public void CreatePackage(IReactPackageBuilder packageBuilder)
    {
      packageBuilder.AddAttributedModules();
    }
  }
}

Here we've implemented the CreatePackage method, which receives packageBuilder to build contents of the package. Since we use reflection to discover and bind native module, we call AddAttributedModules extension method to register all native modules in our assembly that have the ReactModule attribute.

Now that we have the ReactPackageProvider, it's time to register it within our ReactApplication. We do that by simply adding the provider to the PackageProviders property.

App.xaml.cs:

using Microsoft.ReactNative;

namespace SampleApp
{
    sealed partial class App : ReactApplication
    {
        public App()
        {
            /* Other Init Code */

            PackageProviders.Add(new Microsoft.ReactNative.Managed.ReactPackageProvider()); // Includes any modules in this project
            PackageProviders.Add(new NativeModuleSample.ReactPackageProvider());

            /* Other Init Code */
        }
    }
}

This example assumes that the NativeModuleSample.ReactPackageProvider we created above is in a different project (assembly) than our application. However you'll notice that by default we also added a Microsoft.ReactNative.Managed.ReactPackageProvider.

The Microsoft.ReactNative.Managed.ReactPackageProvider is a convenience that makes sure that all native modules and view managers defined within the app project automatically get registered. So if you're creating your native modules directly within the app project, you won't actually want to define a separate ReactPackageProvider.

Attributes

AttributeUse
REACT_MODULESpecifies the class is a native module, making this module recognizable by AddAttributedModules function.
REACT_MODULE_NOREGSpecifies the class is a native module.
REACT_METHODSpecifies an asynchronous method.
REACT_SYNC_METHODSpecifies a synchronous method.
REACT_GET_CONSTANTSSpecifies a method that provides a set of constants. (Preferred)
REACT_CONSTANTSpecifies a field or property that represents a constant.
REACT_CONSTANTPROVIDERSpecifies a method that provides a set of constants.
REACT_EVENTSpecifies a field or property that represents an event.
REACT_STRUCTSpecifies a struct that can be used in native methods (don't nest the definition inside REACT_MODULE).
REACT_INITSpecifies a class initialization module.
ReactFunctionSpecifies a JavaScript function that you want exposed to your native code.

3. Authoring your Native Module

Here is a sample native module written in C++ called FancyMath. It is a simple class that defines two numerical constants and a method 'add'.

FancyMath.h:

#pragma once

#include "pch.h"

#include <codegen\FancyMathSpec.g.h> // This file will be generated by the windows-codegen command from your js spec file

#include <functional>
#define _USE_MATH_DEFINES
#include <math.h>

#include "NativeModules.h"

namespace NativeModuleSample
{
  REACT_MODULE(FancyMath);
  struct FancyMath
  {
    // The namespace here will align with the codegenConfig.windows.namespace property in your package.json
    using ModuleSpec = YourAppCodegenNamespace::FancyMathSpec; 

    REACT_GET_CONSTANTS(GetConstants)
    SampleLibraryCodegen::FancyMathSpec_Constants GetConstants() noexcept {
      SampleLibraryCodegen::FancyMathSpec_Constants constants;
      constants.E = M_E;
      constants.Pi = M_PI;
      return constants;
    }

    REACT_METHOD(Add, L"add");
    double Add(double a, double b) noexcept
    {
      double result = a + b;
      AddEvent(result);
      return result;
    }

    REACT_EVENT(AddEvent);
    std::function<void(double)> AddEvent;
  };
}

The REACT_MODULE macro-attribute says that the class is a React Native native module. It receives the class name as a first parameter. All other macro-attributes also receive their target as a first parameter. REACT_MODULE has an optional parameter for the module name visible to JavaScript and optionally the name of a registered event emitter. By default, the name visible to JavaScript is the same as the class name, and the default event emitter is RCTDeviceEventEmitter.

It is important to specify the ModuleSpec. Defining ModuleSpec will enforce that your module defines the same methods as the JS spec file.

NOTE: Methods annotated with REACT_METHOD and friends must have the noexcept specifier, otherwise the program will not compile. Module authors should make sure all exceptions are handled inside the method.

You can overwrite the JavaScript module name like this: REACT_MODULE(FancyMath, L"math").

You can specify a different event emitter like this: REACT_MODULE(FancyMath, L"math", L"mathEmitter").

NOTE: Using the default event emitter, RCTDeviceEventEmitter, all native event names must be globally unique across all native modules (even the ones built-in to RN). However, specifying your own event emitter means you'll need to create and register that too. This process is outlined in the Native Modules and React Native Windows (Advanced Topics) document.

Then we define constants, this is done using the REACT_GET_CONSTANTS macro-attribute. In this case we are returning a struct which was defined using REACT_STRUCT. This generates code to automatically translate the struct into a JSValueObject.

It's just as easy to add custom methods, by attributing a public method with REACT_METHOD. In FancyMath we have one method, add, which takes two doubles and returns their sum. Again, we've specified the optional name argument in the REACT_METHOD macro-attribute so in JS we call add instead of Add.

Native modules do not have the ability to check that the parameter types and the number of parameters match between what's called from JavaScript and what the native code accepts. However, the framework will validate that the number of promises-like parameters match: if the JavaScript API is async, it will expect that there is one "promise-like" parameter in the native method implementation signature.

A "promise-like" parameter is either:

  • React::ReactPromise<T>
  • a callback function or functor.

See Using Asynchronous Windows APIs.

Here is an example of an async method that returns a string:

    REACT_METHOD(GetString, L"getString");
    void GetString(React::ReactPromise<std::string>&& result) noexcept
    {
      if (error) {
        result.Reject("Failure");
      } else {
        std::string text = DoSomething();
        result.Resolve(text);
      }
    }

This can be also tied in with C++/WinRT event handlers or IAsyncOperation<T> like so:

    REACT_METHOD(GetString, L"getString");
    void GetString(React::ReactPromise<std::string>&& result) noexcept
    {
      if (error) {
        result.Reject("Failure");
      } else {
        something.Completed([result] (const auto& operation, const auto& status) {
          // do error checking, e.g. status should be Completed
          winrt::hstring result{operation.GetResults()};
          result.Resolve(winrt::to_string(result));
        });
      }
    }

See JavaScript and Windows Runtime strings for more details.

The JSValue type can be used when the API returns a JavaScript objects or takes JavaScript objects as input parameters.

Native modules will want to use REACT_METHOD instead of REACT_SYNC_METHOD since the latter precludes web debugging and has performance implications. When using web debugging you will see an exception that reads: Calling synchronous methods on native modules is not supported in Chrome. Consider providing alternative to expose this method in debug mode, e.g. by exposing constants ahead-of-time See: MessageQueue.js.

To add custom events, we attribute a std::function<void(double)> delegate with REACT_EVENT, where the double represents the type of the event data. Now whenever we invoke the AddEvent delegate in our native code (as we do above), an event named "AddEvent" will be raised in JavaScript. As before, you could have optionally customized the name in JS like this: REACT_EVENT(AddEvent, "addEvent").

4. Registering your Native Module

IMPORTANT NOTE: When you create a new project via the CLI, the generated ReactApplication class will automatically register all native modules defined within the app. You will not need to manually register native modules that are defined within your app's scope, as they will be registered automatically.

Now, we want to register our new FancyMath module with React Native so we can use it from JavaScript code. To do this, first we're going to create a ReactPackageProvider which implements Microsoft.ReactNative.IReactPackageProvider. It starts with defining an interface definition (.idl) file:

ReactPackageProvider.idl:

namespace NativeModuleSample
{
    [webhosthidden]
    [default_interface]
    runtimeclass ReactPackageProvider : Microsoft.ReactNative.IReactPackageProvider
    {
        ReactPackageProvider();
    };
}

After that we add the .h and .cpp files:

ReactPackageProvider.h:

#pragma once

#include "ReactPackageProvider.g.h"

using namespace winrt::Microsoft::ReactNative;

namespace winrt::NativeModuleSample::implementation
{
    struct ReactPackageProvider : ReactPackageProviderT<ReactPackageProvider>
    {
        ReactPackageProvider() = default;

        void CreatePackage(IReactPackageBuilder const& packageBuilder) noexcept;
    };
}

namespace winrt::NativeModuleSample::factory_implementation
{
    struct ReactPackageProvider : ReactPackageProviderT<ReactPackageProvider, implementation::ReactPackageProvider> {};
}

ReactPackageProvider.cpp:

#include "pch.h"
#include "ReactPackageProvider.h"
#include "ReactPackageProvider.g.cpp"

#include <ModuleRegistration.h>

// NOTE: You must include the headers of your native modules here in
// order for the AddAttributedModules call below to find them.
#include "FancyMath.h"

namespace winrt::NativeModuleSample::implementation
{
    void ReactPackageProvider::CreatePackage(IReactPackageBuilder const& packageBuilder) noexcept
    {
        AddAttributedModules(packageBuilder, true);
    }
}

If REACT_MODULE_NOREG is used instead of REACT_MODULE, AddAttributedModules will not register this module for you. Such module should be registered manually:

packageBuilder.AddTurboModule(L"FancyMath", MakeModuleProvider<NativeModuleSample::FancyMath>());

Here we've implemented the CreatePackage method, which receives packageBuilder to build contents of the package. Since we use macros and templates to discover and bind native module, we call AddAttributedModules function to register all native modules in our DLL that have the REACT_MODULE macro-attribute. Specifying true here will register all the native modules as TurboModules rather than Native Modules. This will avoid some additional serialization that happens with Native Module calls. If for some reason you need the modules to continue to run as Native Modules, you can specify false here.

See Native Modules vs Turbo Modules for more details on TurboModules.

Now that we have the ReactPackageProvider, it's time to register it within our ReactApplication. We do that by simply adding the provider to the PackageProviders property.

App.cpp:

#include "pch.h"

#include "App.h"
#include "ReactPackageProvider.h"

#include "winrt/NativeModuleSample.h"

namespace winrt::SampleApp::implementation {

App::App() noexcept {
  /* Other Init Code */

  PackageProviders().Append(make<ReactPackageProvider>()); // Includes all modules in this project
  PackageProviders().Append(winrt::NativeModuleSample::ReactPackageProvider());

  /* Other Init Code */
}

} // namespace winrt::SampleApp::implementation

This example assumes that the NativeModuleSample::ReactPackageProvider we created above is in a different project (assembly) than our application. However you'll notice that by default we also added a SampleApp::ReactPackageProvider.

The SampleApp::ReactPackageProvider is a convenience that makes sure that all native modules and view managers defined within the app project automatically get registered. So if you're creating your native modules directly within the app project, you won't actually want to define a separate ReactPackageProvider.

JavaScript and Windows Runtime strings

Note that JavaScript strings are UTF8 (i.e. std::string) but WinRT strings are UTF16 (i.e. winrt::hstring in C++/WinRT), so when inter-operating between JavaScript and WinRT APIs, you will need to convert between these two encodings. See String handling in C++/WinRT, specifically winrt::to_string and winrt::to_hstring.

5. Using your Native Module in JS

Now we have a Native Module which is registered with React Native Windows. How do we access it in JS? Here's a simple RN app:

NativeModuleSample.js:

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import {
  AppRegistry,
  Alert,
  Text,
  View,
} from 'react-native';

import FancyMath from './NativeFancyMath'
import { NativeEventEmitter } from 'react-native';

const FancyMathEventEmitter = new NativeEventEmitter(FancyMath);

class NativeModuleSample extends Component {

  componentDidMount() {
    // Subscribing to FancyMath.AddEvent
    FancyMathEventEmitter.addListener('AddEvent', this.eventHandler, this);
  }

  componentWillUnmount() {
    // Unsubscribing from FancyMath.AddEvent
    FancyMathEventEmitter.removeListener('AddEvent', this.eventHandler, this);
  }

  eventHandler(result) {
    console.log("Event was fired with: " + result);
  }

  _onPressHandler() {
    // Calling FancyMath.add method
    FancyMath.add(
      /* arg a */ FancyMath.getConstants().Pi,
      /* arg b */ FancyMath.E,
      /* callback */ function (result) {
        Alert.alert(
          'FancyMath',
          `FancyMath says ${FancyMath.getConstants().Pi} + ${FancyMath.getConstants().E} = ${result}`,
          [{ text: 'OK' }],
          {cancelable: false});
      });
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <View>
         <Text>FancyMath says PI = {FancyMath.getConstants().Pi}</Text>
         <Text>FancyMath says E = {FancyMath.getConstants().E}</Text>
         <Button onPress={this._onPressHandler} title="Click me!"/>
      </View>);
  }
}

AppRegistry.registerComponent('NativeModuleSample', () => NativeModuleSample);

To access your native modules, you need to import from your spec file, in this case NativeFancyMath. Since our modules fires events, we're also bringing in NativeEventEmitter.

To access our FancyMath constants, we can simply call FancyMath.getConstants().E and FancyMath.getConstants().Pi.

Calls to methods are a little different due to the asynchronous nature of the JS engine. If the native method returns nothing, we can simply call the method. However, in this case FancyMath.add() returns a value, so in addition to the two necessary parameters we also include a callback function which will be called with the result of FancyMath.add(). In the example above, we can see that the callback raises an Alert dialog with the result value.

For events, you'll see that we created an instance of NativeEventEmitter passing in our FancyMath module, and called it FancyMathEventEmitter. We can then use the FancyMathEventEmitter.addListener() and FancyMathEventEmitter.removeListener() methods to subscribe to our FancyMath.AddEvent. In this case, when AddEvent is fired in the native code, eventHandler will get called, which logs the result to the console log.

Last updated on 11/5/2025
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